Myocardial Cellular Crosstalk and Gene Therapy

Objectives

Cardiovascular diseases such as myocardial infarction and chronic arterial hypertension constitute a major health problem facing the western world, as both diseases ultimately lead to heart failure, which is a very deadly disease with mortality rates of 50% within 5 years. Mechanistically, pathological cardiac hypertrophy, lack of cardiomyocyte regeneration, myocardial fibrosis, insufficient angiogenesis and also dysfunction of peripheral organs (such as atrophy of skeletal muscle) contributes to the development and progression of heart failure.

Research Focus

We study the paracrine interaction of cardiac myocytes, fibroblasts and endothelial cells during the development of cardiac hypertrophy and heart failure, in order to understand how signalling between these cell types coordinates remodelling of the heart in response to hemodynamic overload. In addition, we study the endocrine influence between skeletal muscles and the heart during cardiac failure.

Our group interrogates signaling mechanisms within cardiac myocytes that lead to cardiomyocyte proliferation and cardiomyocyte hypertrophy. Regarding the latter, we focus on the regulation of cardiomyocyte protein synthesis and the development of translational therapeutic strategies (for example based on gene therapy or small molecules) to combat pathological hypertrophy and heart failure.